


The Magician and the Poet

by mercurien



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke, Literary RPF
Genre: Gen, The canon Strange/Byron meetup: a (mostly) unabridged edition, and the Purposefully Purple Prose of John Segundus, ft. AWKWARDNESS and ARGUMENTS and ANGST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 05:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4775726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercurien/pseuds/mercurien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being an Extract from Segundus’ <i>The Life of Jonathan Strange</i> (pub. John Murray, London, 1820) relating the brief Period in the Summer of 1816 when that celebratèd Magician visited the equally celebratèd Poet, Lord Byron, at the Villa Diodati, Geneva.</p><p>(or, I would like to apologise to the entire Romantic movement.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Magician and the Poet

Upon quitting Lausanne, having found that town not at all to his somewhat mercurial tastes, Strange proceeded directly to Geneva. The present Author has never had the honour of visiting this City, and yet its Virtues are so extolled, both by those who have beheld it with their own Eyes and those who have merely read the accounts, in prose or verse, of those who have, that no Englishman who has followed recent literary developments may truly be able to say that he knows nothing of Geneva. 

It is situated upon the south-western shores of the Lake that bears its name, at the point where it meets the Rhône, a narrow basin of glassy water ensconced in the sublime Mountainscape of that region, with the Alps to the west and the Jura to the east. It is the Majesty of this Scenery, I am told, that is the chiefest delight the city offers; the alien ruggedness of the Peaks, whose flanks are wreathed in tenebrous skirts of pine-forest; the skies of a cloud-whorled blue freshness that reflect the glittering white of the glaciers that cling to those summits; the solemn Magnificence of these scenes strikes into the heart of the beholder a profound Tranquility, it is said. For who can behold the foremost works of the Divine, be imbued with the Awe and Terror of such spectacles, which in turn inspires in the subject a sense of his own insignificance in the face of Eternity, and be unmoved? or furthermore, to retain a single thought in his head for any ephemeral human matter that may trouble his mortal heart? Indeed, it was my own dearest wish that Strange should derive some Comfort from his current surroundings, that his Grief should be tam'd by it, that that calm which is produced in the hearts of those who behold the Sublime might also be produced in my friend, and, if not to make him forget his bereavement, to lessen his pains.

The first letter I received from Strange at Geneva, dated July the Eleventh, greatly dampened these hopes. Even while the rain lashed against the window-panes of Starecross Hall and slate-grey clouds tumbled through the moors, the abominable weather to which we were subject did not seem, forgive me, altogether uncharacteristic of a Yorkshirian summer. His first address, however, was surprizingly familiar to me, which I reproduce here: 

> _At Geneva we are wracked with the most terrific thunderstorms I have ever seen; the skies roil and seethe like a cooking-pot; immense black clouds, laced with dazzling bolts of lightning, o’erhang the lake. It is spectacular!_

I should have been a fool to expect Strange to be enchanted into Repose by surroundings that were so clearly not a counterweight but a mirror to his own. On later contemplation, which is to say, following the events at Venice, I may even have fancied that the passionate rages of a Magician’s heart may replicate themselves in his environs; that indeed he may have carried the rainclouds with him, that, while unconscious of his own power, some secret impulse forbade any-body to enjoy the charms of a summer to which he would surely be insensible, while the absence of Mrs Strange continued to bore so inexorable a cleft into his tempestuous spirits. It was a fanciful notion, although I am sure the Reader will perceive that it was not without its attractions to a fellow Magician. 

Moreover, it was not the weather which first drew his Ire, or diminished the possibility of his happiness at Geneva, but the more mundane question of his lodgings. A vacant house from which the charming Prospect of the Plainpalais could be viewed was, he complained at a further point in the letter to which we have already referred, too close to the cemetery for his liking, or even his toleration. The dense streets of Geneva oppressed him; the remoter Villae were all presently occupied by other, somewhat more affluent tenants. When at length a house was procured for his stay, his letters were stuffed with addenda or post-scripts quibbling over his suspicions of damp, a neighbour’s dog, or somesuch other matter that vexed him.

It was around this time that Strange was informed, no doubt by some enraptured local (whether with awe or outrage it is always difficult to indicate, for reasons which will become clear) that his house was but a short walk from the Villa Diodati, of which Lord Byron was the current occupant. Strange, having assured me that he was “about a month behind” him, had not expected to encounter his lordship at all; and yet he was later to learn that he had been obliged to stop at Mannheim while his physician, Dr Polidori, recovered from a sudden fever he had contracted there, which had considerably slowed his journey, and that furthermore he intended a protracted stay in Geneva, and would likely hold the lease of the Villa Diodati for a period of a few months.

Mr Murray’s testimony confirms what Strange had told me in his letter; that the Publisher had often desired that these particular two of his Authors might become better acquainted. He was acutely aware that by this point Lord Byron the Poet exceeded the fame of Lord Byron’s Poetry, and with the keen eye for business of any _entrepreneur_ , he had paid Dr Polidori a not inconsiderable sum to keep a diary of his travels with his lordship (and indeed Murray might have done very well for himself out of his undertaking had not, he later confided, he failed to make it clear to Dr Polidori that the character and habits of _Lord Byron_ were to be the subject of this journal -- not those of Dr Polidori). Strange also notes that a local hotelier offers sailing trips onto the Lake in order to spy (telescopes naturally being included) for ladies’ undergarments on the Villa Diodati’s washing-lines. Such was the Poet’s notoriety; even Strange may not have been immune to the attraction of his reputation as a man of passionate and temperamental disposition. Whatever his motives, whether from a sense of obligation to Mr Murray or his own interest, Strange determined to visit Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati.

As we have already said, the Villa was presently occupied by Lord Byron and his physician Polidori; it is also generally known that more often than not they entertained Byron’s fellow-poet Shelley, along with Mrs Shelley and her sister Miss Clairmont, who had lately returned from an excursion to Vevai; this was the party that met Strange when at length he paid his visit around the middle of July. This meeting having since attained a sort of quasi-mythical status among the fashionable _literati_ , it has seemed pertinent to attempt to record the facts of it to the greatest degree of accuracy of which I am capable. Happily, both of its principal participators, that is to say, Strange and Byron, not only found it equally disagreeable, but were equally of a mind to write down everything that did disagree with them, on account of Lord Byron being a poet, Strange believing himself a widower, and both being tourists. The latter recorded the meeting in a long letter that I received in August, excerpts of which I shall copy here:

> “I was greeted at the door,” (says he), “by this Mrs Clairmont I have already mentioned. She expressed her _transcendent Delight_ at receiving a visitor, for Geneva otherwise offered no Society whatsoever, let alone the Wondrous and Strange; appeared to have no concern for the usual formalities of Introduction. When I told her I was Strange _the Magician_ her manner stifled somewhat; asked whether I was _Lord Wellington’s Magician_ , to which I replied that I had indeed served at his side in the Peninsula and at Waterloo. I was shown posthaste into the drawing-room, where Byron and his companions - Mr Shelley, Mrs Shelley, Mr Polidori - were engaged in a morning’s reading, as I am told is their habit. Mrs S[helley] is diligently toiling away at Rousseau’s _Julia_ , I perceive, and of all those present she seemed to have the most _respectable_ Aspect, however small a compliment that may be. I learnt later on that she is writing a Novel, a Ghost-story; they are all mad for Ghost-stories and tales of the Macabre. Her husband had draped himself over her like a shadow, and appeared, to my eye, to be rapidly developing a bitter grudge against Julie for occupying Mrs S’ attentions; he seemed like to expire of Consumption at any moment. I identified Lord Byron as I had hitherto done so at Murray’s house, by his brooding aspect, violently curl’d hair, a set of heavy-liddèd eyes passing the most transitory of glances over his volume of Coleridge’s _Christabel_. Mr Polidori, who evidently takes pains to imitate his Companion in every manner of style and dress, sulked in a corner over a writing-desk. None of those assembled looked up when I enter’d.”  

Lord Byron’s letter to Murray, however, states that upon Strange’s entering the room he at once looked him over and conceived a disdain for Strange’s half-mourning. “His wife died at Christmas, did she not?” he asked, obviously expecting six months to be the absolute maximum one may spend grieving for the lost companion of one’s life and soul. Perhaps, given Lord Byron’s now-famous experience of Matrimony, we must not be surprized at his thinking so.

> “Mrs C[lairmont] announced me to the company as _Strange the Magician_ , at which some interest was shown. Byron closed his book and aimed it square at Polidori’s head, who caught it in an understandably disgruntled fashion and placed it upon the highest shelf in the room. Mrs C seated herself beside Byron on the sopha, and regardèd him with that expression seen in a Cat beseechingly depositing the remains of a mouse or bird at their Master’s feet in anticipation of Approval.
> 
> ‘Tis _Strange_ ,’ said he.
> 
> ‘Indeed,’ said I.
> 
> He bestowed upon me what I thought to be a contemptuous look. ‘I meant, ‘tis _strange_ , that a Magician should occupy himself with us mere Poets, is it not? What interest can we poor Creatures, who must suffice with the flimsy Artifice of _Words_ to weave our Magicks, hold for one who may move Heaven and Earth with a snap of his fingers? Perhaps his lackeying to that scoundrel Wellesley has muffled his natural Gifts -- did you not move about half the Peninsula for him? I must tell you, Mr Strange, I shall be touring Italy soon and I wish to find its Sights in the places they are indicated on the map, if you please.”
> 
> ‘Ah! so this is Wellington’s magician!’ cried Shelley, to which I, once more, replied that I had indeed served at his side in the Peninsula and at Waterloo.
> 
> ‘But are you not ashamed?’ asked Mrs C, ‘to have been an instrument in the fall of so sublime a man as the Emperor Napoleon!’
> 
> ‘No,’ said I. ‘I am not. Had you ever been on a battlefield, madam, you would never expect me to feel shame at victory.’
> 
> Byron then interjected that I must surely perceive that Lord Wellington is inferior in faculties to his Adversary.
> 
> ‘I may have conceded as such,’ I replied, ‘had he lost. But if he _had_ lost, I should not be here - and neither, indeed, should any of you, for no Englishman or -woman would be able to travel to Swisserland, or through any of those territories formerly under the power of the greatest Enemy of our nation in modern times. You are indebted to Lord Wellington for your sanctuary, your solitude, and your fine views of Lake Geneva. As to Waterloo, does not his victory prove his superiority? This is the case in any Battle of Wills; I fail to see why it should not be so in the ordinary sort of Battle.’
> 
> ‘But you have not the _Experience_ with the Emperor that you do with Wellington,’ said L[ord] B[yron].
> 
> ‘With respect, my lord, you do not appear to have a great deal of Experience with either,’ said I. ‘It is true; however. I confess I know Buonaparte only as I know God and Satan, whichever you believe him to be, which is to say, through his Works; but given the trouble he has given me, I may not be persuaded to alter my sympathies in his Favour. If you are bent on idolizing Buonaparte, may I suggest that the Fall of a Great Man is infinitely more Poetical than his Triumph? Is not this principle the very crux of Tragedy?’
> 
> LB dismissed what I said, but not, I should emphasise, before contemplating it for some time. Shelley, who was still reclin’d upon his wife’s shoulder and would periodically let out profound Sighs, announced to the Company that I was not at all what he had expected of a Magician. Polidori emerged from his shadowy corner and vociferously concurred.
> 
> ‘May you tell us anything about _vampyres_ , Mr Strange?’ said he. I told him I had never heard of such a thing in my life. Polidori protested, with a reference to the desk at which he had been seated, that he was presently writing a story about one. These deathless Creatures, he said, called _Vorvolakas_ in Greece where Lord B had travelled, feed upon the blood of virgin Females to prolong their eternal Youth and Beauty. They may be identified by the extraordinary Pallor of an otherwise finely-sculpted visage (he chanced a discreet look at LB as he pronounced these words), and inordinate carnal Appetites. He thought a Magician ought to know all about them, among myriad other sorts of Supernatural Beings; I informed him that I did not (without regret, I thought privately, for despite what the Poets thought, I imagined such a Creature would be very disagreeable to encounter).”

We may allude here to a letter of Mrs Shelley’s which, since the unhappy Decease of its Recipient, has been kept by the relative who so kindly copied the relevant passages for the pages of this book.

The author of _Frankenstein_ appears to have expressed a great deal of interest in Strange. Despite his efforts to suppress the rapidly-proliferating rumours concerning the episode with the Neapolitan soldiers in the Peninsula, they had certainly reached the ears of Mrs Shelley by this time, for she writes, “Society has visited us in the curious form of a Magician, Mr Jonathan Strange; is newly widowed and still in mourning; carries a solemn aspect undull’d by the pitiful _doleurs_ of grief; I perceive in his quarrelling with Albè an edge of _madness_ to his Melancholy. It is said he, to procure some sort of Intelligence for officers in the Peninsula, used his Magic to infuse Life into the manglèd corpses of a company of Neapolitan soldiers. The matter has only just now been recalled to me -- for it is not unlike the subject of my Story -- yet could not mimick poor Polidori’s conduct and pose the naked question for it is but a _rumour_ , and doubtless should distress him. I regard him from across the drawing-room and can scarcely picture it, for he takes pains to appear respectable - to picture, I mean, him in the feverish Spanish heat knelt beside those bloodied carcasses, reciting some incantation, breathing the spark of Creation itself into dead matter, like the Doctor of my fiction. Nevertheless Shelley agrees he is _intriguing_ ; this may be Albé’s opinion, tho his Pride would never permit him recognize what is obvious to all, that he and Strange are alike in Temperament.”

Though she is by no means the first to make the comparison, Mrs Shelley’s appears to have perceived something of Strange’s character beneath the taciturn respectability that so strongly characterised his conduct during these months. Desiring solitude to contemplate the Abyss of his own woes, he could not revel in passionate despair; so dear had Mrs Strange been to him, he needed neither mountains nor laudanum nor Coleridge to exacerbate the depth of his feelings. He and Lord Byron would later form a far more amicable acquaintanceship in Venice, but at this point they departed not without some rancour on both sides. Or, as Strange puts it:

> “After several further attempts at Conversation came to naught, Shelley inquired whether I should like to join LB and himself in sailing across Lake Geneva, as was their custom of an afternoon. With a sour glance at his friend, LB told him that he was sure Mr Strange would not; I heartily seconded his opinion. It was thus, with his neglecting to shake my hand being the final ceremony that brought our fledgling dislike for one another to a healthy maturity, that I paid my compliments and quitted the Villa Diodati.”

Strange had disappointed Byron as a Magician; it is difficult, indeed, to read Byron’s _Manfred_ of the following year without entertaining the notion that _this_ , the spirit-summoning reckless dissolute, is the Magician that Byron wanted, instead of the mourning Widower he got, and curiously, it is almost a striking portrait of Strange himself during the Venetian Crisis. A further letter to Mr Murray tells us that Jonathan Strange the Magician certainly made enough of an impression upon the literary _coterie_ assembled at the Villa Diodati as to pique the interest of Mr Lewis when he joined their number in August; however, by the end of that month, the household had dissolved, Byron had parted ways with his Doctor (who has recently published his tale of _The Vampyre_ , initially misattributed to Lord Byron himself), and Strange, by this time, had quitted Geneva for Italy.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a couple of days (mostly as a test run for another JS&MN/Romantics fic I might write) & with minimal(ish) research, so I apologise for inaccuracies; I used Mary & Percy Shelley’s _Letters from Geneva_ , _The Diary of Dr. John William Polidori_ and Daisy Hay’s _Young Romantics_ to get a rough idea and made everything else up from there.
> 
> By the way, the recipient of Mary's letter is her sister Fanny Imlay, who committed suicide in October 1816.
> 
> Oh, and I only found out as I was about to post this that (completely coincidentally) over on JSAMN Society of Magician's they did a Lord Byron Character Day just yesterday. I hope they don't mind me gatecrashing!


End file.
